I

Speech on the Immediate Tasks of Party
Development. September 24

Comrades, I think that certain statements made during the
debates and even certain speeches are worth mentioning if only because they
obviously express not just overstrain, but overstrain bordering on hysteria
and therefore giving a misplaced emphasis. I would not call it demagogy. It
is physical overstrain to the point of hysteria. This applies mainly to the
speeches by Lutovinov and Bubnov, in which there was less of
demagogy than of overstrain. To some extent I think there were signs of
overstrain in Medvedev’s statement too. He said: “Now you have all started
speaking about unhealthy symptoms, but before you used to deny it, you
weren’t telling the truth.” I think this explanation is not quite
correct, in fact it is quite incorrect. That the unhealthy
symptoms we are talking about really exist-was hardly a secret. Without a
doubt, the general situation was so grave that we couldn’t find time till
now for the Party, we had no chance to raise this question specially in the
Party. Even now we raise it with difficulty, because the chance we are
discussing here in our political talk-the chance of our being able to avoid
a winter campaign-is extremely slender. The general situation of the
Republic, as I mentioned, has improved to such an extent that we are now
able to discuss things more calmly: there is no longer any question of
suspending the conference the way we did several times when Kolchak and,
Denikin were advancing. There were Party congresses from which a number of
leading workers went straight off to the front without waiting for them to
end. Mind you, we seldom convene congresses, we seldom have a chance of
discussing important issues at congresses-yet before we couldn’t even see a
congress through to the end, rarely though it was convened.
Today at any rate we can and ought to thresh things out without
restricting ourselves. I should also like to say a word about
Kalinin’s attempts to present the case in a Marxist way. It seems to
me that his arguments were a long step away from Marxism, and the correct
Marxist view I think was given in the resolution of the Moscow
Committee—which you have all, of course, read and which has been put out
in a small pamphlet and printed in Pravda—and the letter of the Central
Committee.

I should like to read out several lines, which I would offer to the
committee (if it be decided to set one up), not in lieu of the Moscow
resolution and the C.C.’s letter, but as supplementary material to
them.[1]
The resolution of the Moscow Committee I think-and all are agreed on
this-deals with the question correctly. Allow me to quote those few words
and dwell on them briefly. Here is the addendum: “The indescribably grave
position of the Soviet Republic in the early years of its existence,
extreme devastation and grave military danger, made it necessary to
designate special “shock” (and therefore virtually privileged)
departments and groups of workers. This was unavoidable, since the ruined
country could not be saved unless resources and energies were concentrated
on such departments and such groups of workers, without the strengthening
of which the imperialists of the whole world would have certainly crushed
us and prevented the Soviet Republic from even starting on economic
construction ....”

As regards the old specialists we have heard some very heated attacks
here. The truth came out in Comrade Kutuzov’s speech when he said
that the proletariat saw no improvement of its position from Soviet
Russia–if anything, it was often worse. That’s true. But one must sort out
the facts-for instance, that in Vienna, where there is no Soviet
government, you have the same deterioration, to which you can add a moral
humiliation a hundred times worse. But the rank and file cannot get this
straight. Understand-ably, we are asked: What did we get in the course of
these two years? And obviously, dissatisfaction with the old
specialists is widespread. Naturally, the question whether we need
specialists or not was a salient issue. We shouldn’t forget, however, that
without them we would not have had our army. We would have found ourselves
in the same position as Hungary and the Finnish workers. That is how the
matter stands. Without these specialists—I spoke about this in my
political report—we would not have been able to take those elementary steps
that helped us rise to a definite level. If we had failed to cope with this
specialist business, we would not have had this, we would not have been
able to make further progress. But now, when we have taken them in hand and
harnessed them, when we know that they will not run away from us, but, on
the contrary, are all running to join us, we shall now be sure that
democratisation in the Party and the army will rise. I shall read further
(reads the resolution) ....

Point one
(reads).[2]
Here there is an addition. Comrade Tomsky said, referring to what we have
often spoken about ourselves, that the rank and file should be brought to
the fore, the leaders are tired, give the rank and file a chance. This
could not be done at once, but it will be after another, maybe the
twentieth, attempt. Failing this, Soviet Russia’s cause would be
hopeless. But we know that it is not hopeless, because we have new elements
that are growing up. If the first attempts failed, we shall try and try
again.

Point two
(reads).[3]
Here a rather sarcastic question was asked as to whether freedom of
criticism would correspond to freedom to eat
peaches.[8] I have one measure as a possible guarantee, on the basis
of the proposals made by the committee. At moments when the country is in
danger, when Kolchak reached the Volga and Denikin Orel, there can be no
freedoms. There are other things than this to be regretted. But the
military situation is bad now, too, we see how fickle the fortunes of war
are. We must put this question on the order of the day. But we cannot, we
must not, promise that at moments of military danger we shall not act
differently. We shall have to make a tremendous
effort again and no arguing about it, we shall have to stand firm, strain
every nerve. We do not renounce this at all, and until we have an Italian
victory we must not renounce it. And that’s my reply to the peaches.

Point three
(reads).[4]
Here Comrade Preobrazhensky raised a question which Zinoviev raised too: Is
regulation appropriate here and what is to be understood by it? I shall
leave this question open, as it will be detailed in the committee. We shall
see whether regulation is to be understood as detailed points or as the
setting up of special bodies.

Point four
(reads).[5]
The speaker here said that this question had been raised by the committee
but was rejected by its majority. I believe—I am putting this forward only
in my own name—I believe that it should not be rejected, and if not
accepted at once, at least it should first be considered. It has been
pointed out here that 500 complaints have accumulated in the Orgbureau of
the C.C. The Orgbureau has to distribute tens of thousands of
people. Besides, there is not a single member of the Orgbureau who is not
swamped with work, doing several jobs. Under these conditions one has to
work with unknown quantities, and under such conditions you can only decide
questions by intuition, a thing only experienced people can do, and even
they often make mistakes. Taking into consideration these conditions, we
want to find people with a length of Party membership of not less than
fifteen years, who enjoy the Party’s trust, who are unbiassed, and who
would help in this business, while at the same time standing above the
Orgbureau as regards independence, as they would be elected by the
congress. I believe this step could be taken. To hamper the C.C.’s work or
hold up the decision is impossible. There is no special provision for it,
and we cannot offer it. There used to be a control commission in the German
Workers’ Party. How far that will be possible in our war situation—one
cannot say. In any case we are in a position to take such a step, and the
C.C. has taken that course.

The C.C.’s letter says:
“Special Party commissions to handle relevant complaints should be
organised at all
Gubernia Party Committees and made up of the most dispassionate comrades
enjoying the general trust of the organisation.” It speaks here of
dispassionate comrades. For real militant activities—military, economic
and organisational—passionate people are very often absolutely necessary,
because without high passion they will not be able to work at high
pressure, they will not solve the urgent problem facing the exhausted
country. On the contrary, what we need here are people, who though they may
not possess conspicuous administrative abilities, have a good knowledge of
life. I doubt whether we shall be able to find enough of them for the whole
of Russia, for all gubernias, and if the commissions which are now going to
be set up and which you will set up under the Gubernia Party Committees
prove to be unsuccessful, don’t draw the conclusion that the whole
enterprise is a failure. We may not find a sufficient number of comrades in
the gubernias capable of holding out from congress to congress. If we don’t
find them in the gubernias, we shall find staunch comrades with a knowledge
of life in the centre. I think we should not give up the idea of forming
these bodies.

It may be said: Where is the guarantee that these bodies can exist? We
are in a state of desperate civil war, where, generally speaking, there can
be no question of any freedom of broad criticism and so forth. We have
other things to think of, we must strain every effort to end the war. If
the conditions of war were not what they are, the position would be
different. Under the present conditions we cannot provide for a good many
things; and we say straight out that in order to settle this question in a
practical manner we cannot rely on the C.C., because it is swamped with
work as it is. I doubt whether you will find a single C.C. member—I judge
from my own experience—who doesn’t feel over head and heels in debt as
regards unfinished or skimped jobs. I can imagine no more effective
guarantee of this plan being carried out than the creation of this
commission, of a group of comrades capable of concentrating wholly on this
job with the assurance that it will be entirely independent, handling
affairs which no single member of the C.C., the Orgbureau, or the
Politbureau is in a position to go into with any thoroughness. We may have
a practical grasp of things, seeing
that we are making some progress, that we have increased our grain
collections from 60 to 260 million poods-but this proved insufficient to
give us a Red Army that was not overexhausted, to give us workers who did
not say, “What good has the Red Army done us, we are starving”, and to
give us a leadership that was not utterly worn out and does not stand in
need of help from the rank and file. Nevertheless, we did make that
progress, and that means that even in such a mass state of extreme fatigue
the scale of this fatigue is beginning to diminish and we are entering a
period when we can stop discussing the crust-of-bread question and pass on
to weightier problems confronting us, which we all shall most certainly
tackle.

First published in 1963 in the Fifth Russian Edition of the Collected Works, Vol. 41

Printed from the shorthand record

2

Draft Resolution on the Immediate Tasks of Party
Development

Not in lieu of, but as supplementary material to the C.C,’s
letter and the Moscow Committee’s resolution:

The indescribably grave position of the Soviet Republic in the early
years of its existence, extreme devastation and grave military danger, made
it necessary to designate “shock” (and therefore virtually privileged)
departments and groups of workers. This was unavoidable, since the ruined
country could not be saved unless resources and energies were concentrated
on such departments and groups of workers, without the strengthening of
which the imperialists of the whole world would have certainly crushed us
and prevented the Soviet Republic from even starting on economic
construction.

This circumstance, coupled with the heritage of capitalist and
proprietary habits and attitudes, which are so difficult to get rid of,
explain the necessity for directing
the Party’s attention again and again to the struggle for
implementingÉ[6]

Éthe need for practical guarantees that the decisions of the
Party, which is unanimous on the above-mentioned questions of principle,
should not remain on paper. The conference therefore directs the Central
Committee immediately to resolve, carry out and furthermore propose to the
next congress of the Party that it endorse the following:

(1) the absolute obligatoriness of more frequent and wider meetings of
Party members parallel with other measures for developing activity among
the Party membership;

(2) literary organs to be set up, capable of carrying out a more
systematic and wider criticism of the Party’s mistakes and generally of
criticism within the Party (discussion leaflets, etc.);

(3) precise practical rules to be drawn up on measures for eliminating
the existing inequality (in the conditions of life, size of salaries, and
so forth) between specialists and executives, on the one hand, and the rank
and file, on the other-an inequality that violates democracy, is a source
of demoralisation within the Party and lowers the prestige of Communists;

(4) it shall be found necessary to set up a Control Commission
parallel with the Central Committee consisting of the most experienced,
unbiassed comrades having the longest Party training and capable of
carrying out strict Party control. The Control Commission elected by the
congress of the Party should have the right to receive all kinds of
complaints and examine them by arrangement with the Central Committee and
if necessary by holding joint meetings with it or by submitting the
question to the Party congress.

Lenin

24. IX. 1920

First published in 1942 in Lenin Miscellany XXXIV

Printed from the manuscript

3

Proposals for the Resolution on the Immediate Tasks of
Party
Development[9]

Re the composition of the Control Commission.
Adopt resolution of the C.C.:

that we nominate C.C. members to the Control Commission
only at the desire of the Party conferences, considering it
generally incorrect that these C.C. members are not bound
by the decisions of the C.C. in their work within the Control Commission;

that C.C. members of the Control Commission do not vote in the latter
when the matter specially concerns their
departments or field of work.

As regards transference, add:
without detriment to those being transferred familiarising themselves
with the matter in hand and without detriment to the work, i.e., only in
such a manner as ensures that the management of affairs remains
always in the hands of fully competent workers who guarantee
success.

[7]The Ninth All-Russia Conference of the R.C.P.(B.) held in
Moscow from September 22 to 25, 1920, was attended by 241 delegates (116 of
them voting delegates and 125 with a consultative voice) representing
700,000 Party members. There were delegates from the gubernia organisations
of the R. S. F.S,R. and the Ukraine, from the C.C. of the Communist
Parties of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The Red Army was represented by 34
delegates. The agenda consisted of the following items: 1) Report by the
delegate from the Polish Communists; 2) Political report of the C.C.; 3)
Organisa-tional report of the C.C.; 4) The immediate tasks of Party
develop-ment; 5) Report of the Party History Studies Committee; 6) Report
on the Second Congress of the Communist International.

Lenin opened the conference with the Central
Committee’s political report (see present edition. Vol. 31, pp. 275-79),
which dealt mainly with two questions-that of concluding peace with Poland
and organising Wrangel’s defeat.

Lenin’s report was followed by heated debates,
especially on the causes of the Soviet troops’ setback near Warsaw.
Wind-ing up the debate, Lenin pointed out that the speeches of the
delegates provided rich material for drawing necessary lessons and
deductions. The conference unanimously passed a resolution on the terms of
peace with Poland, and approved the statement by the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee concerning the specific peace.. terms drawn up under
Lenin’s direction and edited by him (see Lenin Miscellany XXXVI,
P. 123-26).

A highlight of the Ninth Conference was the discussion
of the question of the immediate tasks of Party development. The anti-Party
group of "Democratic Centralism" put forward T. V. Sapronov as co-reporter
to air their views on this question. They came out against Party discipline
and the Party’s guiding role in the Soviets and the trade unions. The
conference, like the Ninth Congress of the B.C.P. (B.), strongly rebuffed
the "Democrat-ic Centralism" group.

The conference adopted a re.solution on “The Immediate
Tasks of Party Development” drafted and moved by Lenin (see pp. 212-13 of
this volume), who also wrote the "Proposals for the Resolution on the
Immediate Tasks of Party Development (see p. 214 of this volunie). The
conference called attention to the need for drawing the rank-and-file
Communists intowider active participation in the work of gubernia
conferences and Guhernia Party Committee pie-nums. Measures were outlined
for eliminating red tape in the work of Government and economic bodies. To
combat various abuses and examine complaints received from Communists, the
conference deemed it necessary to set up a Control Commission, and under
the gubernia committees-special Party commissions.

On the C.C.’s organisational report the conference
adopted a resolution to step up the work of the C.C.’s Secretariat with a
view to achieving greater familiarity with local activities and a pooling
of experience, and to pay more attention to the work of the Agitation and
Propaganda Department; it also urged the necessity of improving the C.C.’s
direct guidance of the organi- sational work of the Red Army and Navy Party
organisations and not allowing the work of these organisations to become
detached from public life.

[8]Lenin is referring to the demagogic statement by A. M. Koliontai
alleging persecution for criticism. She said that criticisers were
sometimes offered to go “to nice torrid climes to eat peaches”.

[9]Lenin’s proposals concerning the composition of the Control Commission
were, with certain amendments, incorporated in the resolut,.od of the Ninth
All-Russia Conference of the R.C.P.(B.) “On the Immediate Tasks of Party
Development” (see KPSS v resolyutsiyalch I resheniyakh syezdov,
kon/erentsii I plenumov Ts.K. [The C.P.S.U. in the Resolutions and
Decisions of Its Congresses, Conferences and Plenary Meetings. of the
Central Committee, Part 1, 1854, pp. 506-12).

The last paragraph from the words “As regards
transference” was crossed out by Lenin and omitted from the
resolution.